It was originally developed for web deployment of applications, where a user would click on an 'Install with SoftwareValet' link on a website, and the BeOS web browser at the time, NetPositive, would launch SoftwareValet. It also handled product registration and software updates through a (now defunct) centralised server, BeDepot (bedepot.com).

SoftwareValet applications could also be distributed in non-web delivered upkg files, which are non-self executing, encapsulated installer files. Installation is based on direct file locations and shell scripts, and has very little chance of user manipulation; although a file format break in BeOS R4.5 allowed package makers to use non-direct paths, as a preparation for making the OS multi-user.

The compression format is known to be based on zlib, but no tools other than SoftwareValet exist for manipulating packages.

A companion application, PackageBuilder was bundled with the BeOS developer tools, and was used for creating packages, or editing existing ones.